The world's biggest pop-up film festival comes to Taipei

Monthly Archives: February 2012

I had a little present in my email inbox today, the announcement from Future Shorts about the new spring season. It’s really exciting to be part of this project that spans 55 countries, and connected (at least) 25.000 people at 240 different screenings. I believe that we can still do better and be an exceptional local chapter for films here in Taipei. :)

The Spring Screening will include 6 short films, both classic and recent. Will do a detailed profile about them as the preparation progresses for our event.

On March 1, 2012, Future Shorts Festival Spring Season will introduce the Future Shorts Audience Award for the Best Short Film of the Season chosen by the audience from around the world. This Award will provide a platform for our global audience, the key and integral participants of the world’s largest pop-up festival, to tell us which short film they vote as the best of the programme. The director with the most global votes will be awarded €500. The Audience Award will launch into the Spring 2012 programme and throughout the year — it will be a quarterly celebration of the most exciting short films and filmmakers in the world.

This is an awesome idea, and actually we were already ahead of the curve in that one.

The winter screening's audience choices

At the last screening we already had votes, and selected our own Audience Award winner: Luminaris was the favorite — by one vote over God of Love. (Can click the titles to watch their trailers.)

Based on the votes we collected at our last screening, Luminaris came out as the audience’s at Future Shorts Taipei. It’s a very creative piece with a lot of heart, something that can easily make Valentine’s Day out of any other ordinary day.

The interview does not mention that this was his 9th movie, and he’s making films for over 10 years. Here’s for example Lapsus (click to see) from 2007, a nun’s adventures into the dark side (Oh, my God!).

Just another couple of hours, and the world slips into two kinds of weather.

On one side the sky is full of hearts, angles, might even have flowers (–and bees?) as well.

On the other side the sky can be a bit of a blur, but it doesn’t have to.

This day is ought to be for everyone. The love between lovers has been zoomed in till the tiny details, so that roses and chocolate can be as expensive as a main course from Michelin three star restaurant.

One time during the sweetest day in a year (that is Christmas, at least it is to me) we were chatting about holidays, and when talked about the holiday of tomorrow, finally we all agree that it shouldn’t just be a celebration for lovers, it should be a day that praises love – between family members, parents, brothers and sisters, friends… And the most important part – the love between you and yourself. We all know if you don’t love or take care of yourself, then it’s not easy for you to have a healthy love for someone else. Plus, “you” are the only one you can never get away from! Don’t you think that it is worth to love yourself a little more?

So “A day praising love” —

That is the reason why I try to avoid a big heart made of roses in the picture for tomorrow because rose has been recognized as a symbol of love but sometimes in a very narrow way – just the love of couples. That’s what all the commercials told us.

On the other hand, movies are loved by almost everyone, and no matter whether you have a plan for tomorrow or not, a movie can always take you to a celebration – whether it’s about love, praying or eating.

{ When the planes hit the twin towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge — they were all messages of love. } — Love Actually

I can’t even remember where have I heard about the Future Shorts for the first time. All I can recall that months ago I tried to recruit some people to help me organize it and failed. Then after the success of Ignite Taipei #3 I got inspired again, there’s chance to pull it off. There was a lot of motivation – I had a lot of new and interesting friends who I kinda wanted to impress a little. Just a little. Mostly I wanted to know what can I do if I have very limited time and resources, do I have enough drive, contacts and support to get it done.

Before the crowd's in.

It feels in the end, the first Future Shorts Taipei, showing the 2011 Winter selection, was an resounding success (and have pictures to prove it). Looking back, it wasn’t that hard…

With some intuition found a venue that was a natural fit for this kind of event, 睡不著咖啡館 Insomnia Cafe, with an owner who was just as excited about the films as I was.

The films were really awesome.

The people of Taipei, both Taiwanese and foreigners love movies and open to new experiences

Last but not least, I had a good friend helping out, who really made a mark on how the event shaped up, design, ideas and giving invaluable feedback. :)

Not yet a month passed since then, and finally the programme of 2012 Spring selection is up, and we better get working on putting it on screen over here. Of course there are a lot of outstanding questions about how to make this 2nd event at least as good (and hopefully better) than the last one.

Where to show it? Keep the same cozy venue or scale up to a proper cinema? Or do two different style of screening, maybe attracting two different style of crowd? This solution would really tickle that part of my brain that loves experimenting.

When to show? We have time between March and May, and the exact date is not a big deal, but which day of the week? Last time because of various constraints it was a Monday evening. Should this time go for a different day?

How much we should get into promoting the event? I like the process of marketing more than I dare to admit, and there’s a lot more things to try, new methods, new contacts, new ideas. This is again a slight internal conflict for me, originally I organized this mainly for my friends, and they are still my priority, but cannot deny that it would feel good if a lot of people had good time.

Great audience at the Future Shorts Taipei

Either way, there’s a lot more things forward, and I can’t wait to see what. And can’t wait to see more movies.